Woman Part 9

Hidden under her bell-shaped Breton petticoat which touched the floor lay my pretty gray china cup s.h.i.+vered to bits.

She behaved the way girls brought up by Sisters always do. She crouched against the wall, her forehead hidden in the crook of her arm. Her bosom as pinched as a wasp's went up and down precipitately, and the tears began to flow.

I stopped gathering up the pieces to console her gently.

"It's not your fault, Marie ... come, don't cry, don't cry."

Marie close by is bending over the sink rubbing it with a brush round and round always on the same spot. The water slaps on the tile floor and squirts over my dress. Her movements have something eternal about them and the appearance of never-ending complaint.

There is nothing to say. Whatever I do, she remains dumb, and the more I try to reach her, the more she avoids me.

But what does Marie matter? I force myself to get back to my own affairs. And quickly. _He_ will come in, there will be his gaiety, the joy flas.h.i.+ng in our voices, the day's doings to tell of, and our dear union only a fortnight old....

Marie is there; nothing can efface her. My irritation against her boils up, then turns against myself. It is not pity I feel but rather an intolerable impotence. I hurl myself with all my force against the eclipsed expression of the Breton girl, and each time it hurts.

Marie....

And I used to think that to love was to feel yourselves alone. On the contrary, it is to feel yourself to be many.

No, no, love is not the emotion of two people. No, as soon as one feels love one wants to love _everyone_, win over everyone, s.h.i.+ne on everyone, even on this ignorant head. What sin have I committed that a single welcome should be denied me? She does not smile; that's my fault. What is lacking in my love that I should face the vexation of a culpable failure? My pity for Marie and my love for him are one, because I have only one heart. And since my heart is repulsed, is it impure?

Marie has resumed her feeble, beaten-down existence. She has set aside the brush, her blue eyes look beyond the walls, she wipes her wet hands on her ap.r.o.n--her hostile hands, which are peculiarly hers.

What can one do? But there must be _something_ she believes in, there must be something one can do to move her, there must be some word to say to uncover the tomb of her heart.

I stopped. For a moment I left my work....

Where find the ultimate words of love, the final words--simple and difficult--when one does not even know the word to make one poor inferior Marie blossom out?

II

When I am old I shall warm myself at the rich s.h.i.+ning vision of the first days of my love. I shall hold out the dry sticks of my arms. I shall beg for a little fire, a little sap. I shall return to the present with feebly beating heart and faltering step.

Poor withered old woman, you do not remember; and others will bestow upon you the charity of showing you a picture of lovers. You see us as we, wife and husband, used to embrace, how I leapt to his side, how his mouth clung to the fruits of my cheeks, and how we laughed a matchless laughter. Well, that is enough for you, return to your winter, to the virgin plain of your old age, to your years perched precipitously over death.

Am I the first by any chance to hide the truth from you?

The truth of to-day has no brilliance or halo. My joy in being a young bride is not at all what I used to fancy it would be.

The dominant motive of my life at present, its great preoccupation, is by no means to invent new words of love. It is to give battle to the existence that one buys--buys with pennies and infinite pains.

We are poor. As we each earn our own living, we have decided that I shall manage the budget for both. It is my job to concoct the meals; and they must be wholesome, pleasing to the eye, intelligently planned, tasty. The house must be bright, beautiful, convenient, cozy, stamped with an air of prosperity. Time has to be economized, a ceaseless tyranny must be exercised over things, nothing may be neglected, order must be adhered to slavishly, hygienic principles followed vigilantly.

And lastly, all these things, which are everything, must be accomplished successfully, and so successfully that once caught and conquered they will come easily.

If only I had the money with which to fare forth to battle, it might be easy, but the sum at my disposal is about enough for a doll's budget.

You could hold it on the tip of a knife; it is inexorably minute.

Besides, girl that I am, I do not possess overly much of that courageous ingenuity and imagination which go so far, nor of the determination which clenches its fists and stares a sombre defiance.

Love? Why does one never foresee that there will be accounts and money cares, so important and so tormenting, and at the very start? Why doesn't one know that these things take precedence over love, over everything in daily life?

You have to get up to do the marketing an hour earlier than you're used to. You have to learn to sew because a new dress and the joy of pleasing him are a wish of love, but also represent a sum of money.

At the time I did not know it, but it was an immense triumph that he was comfortable and happy when he returned home. There was the delight his surprise gave me when, with great pride, I produced some jolly-looking fruit for dessert. And see--there was the modest glory of having been able to buy the lovely flowers for his room with my own coppers.

As a girl I walked towards love antic.i.p.ating fiery words, forceful looks, and two solemn presences.... I used to say to myself: Love!...

And behold, by way of humble events and simple tasks I have found the affirmation of love.

III

We were sleeping side by side, our breathing intermingled; and nothing was sweeter than this nearness of our slumber.

He put out the lamp and stretched himself beside me, and we remained like that, silent, drowned in sweetness and the night. It was a living impression of repose.

Beside his close warmth a torpidity brooded, for the days were exhausting, and while he raised himself slowly on his elbow to lull me to sleep with his eyes, I broke away in spite of myself from the beneficent clasp and fell asleep like a child.

But last night, although nearly midnight, sleep was slow in coming. He kissed my lips. Suddenly a strange will broke in me.... What instinct was I obeying?... Then a violent repulsion. I knitted my brows. Ah, I detested him....

That night it was I who wide-eyed and curious watched him fall asleep.

IV

There was one second above all....

If I had had the time to think, I should have thought that this second was worth the whole of life, the whole of death, and even more than life.

V

The nights are links in a chain. Previously life consisted of day and night; white, black; black, white. Since then life goes on unbrokenly.

VI

This morning when I caught a reflection of myself in the shop windows, I noticed I had a strange air of authority, a self-a.s.surance quite new and indefinable, a manner crisper, more clear-cut. When I purchased my provisions I had the courage to haggle, and the market-women treated me as an equal.

My firmness and decisiveness have made Marie reveal the pale ocean of her eyes. A distance seems to have been set between us.